Movement and subjectivity

From revolution in physics to revolution in subject

Abstract

In the light of the scientific revolution as a paradigm shift, according to Thomas Kuhn in his book The structure of scientific revolutions, the purpose of this brief article is to outline how the conceptual change on the nature of movement, promoted by Galileo Galilei in physics, resulted in the primacy of subjectivity in Descartes' philosophy. Thus, I seek to explain how this paradigm shift led to the total transformation of the way we see the world. To this end, the bibliography cited here will be based on Galileu’s Dialogue concerning the two chief world systems, which addresses Aristotle’s presumably unquestionable guarantee of Earth’s immobility: the tower argument. Next, based on René Descartes’ Metaphysical meditations, I will show how the dream argument is overcome by the metaphysical doubt and how once finding himself lacking a fixed point on which he could stand, Descartes arrives at the cogito. Based on the paradigm shift regarding the nature of movement, this article aims to arrive at this radical interiorization: the cogito – a central thought of modern philosophy and birth of the philosophies which consider the subject as the basis of knowledge.